Friday, March 09, 2018

Shortwave Radiogram, March 10-11

As I was typing last week's edition of this email, the lights in my house were
flickering because of the high winds on 2 March. I knew I had to work fast:
adding new names to the mailing list, then sending the email three times, each
with a third of the mailing list, and finally uploading the Shortwave Radiogram
audio to Bulgaria and to WRMI. All of that was finished just before the lights
went out at 6:00 am. (Actually, I was on the UPS.) Power was not restored until
about 7:00 pm.

But my internet connection was not restored at that time. The Verizon fiber
optic lines were victims of falling trees a few blocks away. Internet did not
return until Sunday at about 3:00 pm. Because of this, I was not able to send
my usual Twitter reminders and retweets of listeners' images, at least for the
Saturday 1600 UTC show.

Videos: BacardeSan in Mississippi produced an amazing video
showing his simultaneous reception of 5850 and 7730 kHz, from WRMI Florida,
Monday at 0800-0830 UTC. He used a single RTL_SDR and GQRX software. You won't
be able to decode from his audio because the two frequencies were about about
400ms apart: https://youtu.be/E1tY4qGJkTE

This weekend's Shortwave Radiogram will include an MFSK32 image transmitted at
normal speed. It will then be transmitted at half speed, to be recorded then
played back at double speed. Is the quality of the latter image better?

You can use Audacity
to record and change the speed of the transmitted audio. (Effect > Change
Speed > Percent Change: 100.0) Other audio editors are also available. Sometimes it is
tricky to transfer audio from one application to another inside a PC. A virtual
audio cable such as VB
Cable might help.

Details of the experiment are in the attached pdf prepared by Mark Braunstein,
WA4KFZ.

Here is the lineup for Shortwave Radiogram, program 38, 10-11 March 2018, all
in MFSK32 (but with one item slowed down):

The Mighty KBC
transmits to Europe
Saturdays at 1500-1600 UTC on 9400 kHz (via Bulgaria), with the minute of MFSK
at about 1530 UTC (if you are outside of Europe, listen via websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/ ). And to North America Sundays at 0000-0200 UTC
(Saturday 7-9 pm EST) on 6150 kHz, via Germany. The minute of MFSK is at about
0130 UTC. Reports to Eric: themightykbc@gmail.com . See also http://www.kbcradio.eu/ and https://www.facebook.com/TheMightyKbc/.

Italian
Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) For the complete IBC transmission schedule visit http://ibcradio.webs.com/ Five minutes of MFSK32 is at the
end of the 30-minute English-language “Shortwave Panorama,” per the schedule
below: